The present invention relates to a method and device for the continuous cooling treatment of metals, especially metallic articles or treated strips, especially sheet metal.
In numerous methods of treatment of metals there is used after an appropriate heating cycle a cooling the speed of which determines the final metallurgical structure of the product. This cooling should be adjusted as a function of the dimensions of the articles or strips treated as well as the rate of production of the installation in order to obtain a constant cooling curve.
There have been suggested various methods intended to answer these requirements. Among the known techniques there may be mentioned blowing of air, blowing of a sprayed liquid suspension of air, contact with a jet of liquid, etc.
Each of these methods has faults:
the blowing of air on its own, even in a large quantity, is unsuitable for achieving high coefficients of heat exchange;
the methods in which there is carried out blowing with a suspension of a liquid sprayed in air, even though flexible and effective, from the point of view of heat exchange achieved, generally requires large pressures for the carrying gas and are therefore not economical; the systems using contact with a jet of liquid are very effective with regard to cooling but they cannot operate over a large range of exchange coefficients.